This is a director's shooting diary of Siren, a new feature film written by Andrew Hull & Geoffrey Gunn. Christopher Granier-Deferre is producing and we are on Location shooting in Tunisia.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Day 19

On our first series of location scouts back in July, Moez, took Christopher took us on a two and a half day whirlwind driving tour. I had done some research on google earth and was surprised when there were no files of location images awaiting us before we set out. Instead we hit the wild and very narrow roads of Tunisia, a truly jaw clenching experience. If it was meant to be, we would find our locations and if not, well, that was the way it was. C, explained to me that it was a cultural thing. On our last day, we head out to see a beach at Cap Seurat. It was a very long drive through beautiful rolling valleys. I’d never seen someone drive quite like Moez. Instead of veering away from oncoming vehicles he would slowly drift towards them. It was a continuous game of high speed chicken. Moez would assert himself over the other driver in an attempt to get them to swerve onto the shoulder. Apart from the large lorries that no car could intimidate, it did seem to work. After a couple of hours of this I stopped worrying about it. If we were going to die in twisted molten heap, then there was not a lot I could do about it. Finally after two and a half hours we drifted through sleepier and sleepier villages, occasionally asking directions to the elusive beach to which, everyone replied, 12 km. Another 12 km would pass and again the same answer, just another 12 km. It was surreal. Finally we caught a glimpse of the coast. It felt like we’d found a hidden world. As we nudged the car through a herd of sleepy sheep on a small bridge we saw it. A meandering river, lined with blossoming pink flowers. It was as if we had landed in some kind of opium dream. I shouted out. Stop the car! We hadn’t found the beach but we had a location for Bruno’s death!

Cap Seurat was our extended day because to the two hour drive. We woke early and clutching our pillows, stumbled to the vans. I was afraid that there might not be anything left in the small river. I was relieved too see a glint of water when we arrived. We began with some shots of Anthony splashing along the stream and then got into his death with Tereza, then Oien’s discovery of Bruno. With the sun slowly sinking we raced to get Anna’s collapse at the stream quickly shooting a very elegant one shot before packing up and waving goodbye to our dreamy Arcadian paradise.